Meren of Clan Butthurt (Competitive)

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Competitive Reanimator Stax

EleventyFive

Creature (32)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Big Game Hunter
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Doomgape
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Heart Warden
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Merciless Executioner
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Mitotic Slime
• 1x Necrotic Ooze
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Sepulchral Primordial
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Spore Frog
• 1x Triskelion
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Void Winnower
• 1x Woodfall Primus

Instant (5)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Malicious Affliction
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Land (33)

• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Command Tower
• 5x Forest
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Grim Backwoods
• 1x High Market
• 1x Hissing Quagmire
• 1x Jungle Hollow
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Strip Mine
• 6x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Treetop Village
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Mind Twist
• 1x Primal Growth
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Victimize

Commander (1)

Enchantment (12)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Awakening Zone
• 1x Bottomless Pit
• 1x Contamination
• 1x Desolation
• 1x Evolutionary Leap
• 1x From Beyond
• 1x Mind Slash
• 1x Oppression
• 1x Pernicious Deed
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Sylvan Library

Artifact (8)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Smokestack
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Winter Orb

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Vraska the Unseen

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Maybeboard

Creature (12)

• 1x Abyssal Gatekeeper
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Catacomb Sifter
• 1x Devoted Druid
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Greenwarden of Murasa
• 1x Mitotic Slime
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Phyrexian Devourer
• 1x Reaper from the Abyss
• 1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
• 1x Void Winnower

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Death Cloud
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Dread Summons
• 1x Mulch
• 1x Mutilate
• 1x Pox

Artifact (1)

• 1x Eldrazi Monument

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Deadbridge Chant
• 1x Deathreap Ritual
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Grave Pact

Instant (1)

• 1x Wretched Confluence

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Meren Stax

Breakdown

Stax is a term used to describe a deck strategy that mostly relies on resource denial, taxing effects, disruption, and sacrifice enablers to potentially lock down opponents and make it difficult to cast spells, play creatures, attack, breath, sleep, and/or have any kind of reliable board state. The goal is to build your Rube Goldberg contraption of denial as fast and efficiently as possible thus allowing you to set up your win cons unopposed. Stax decks use a inefficient = efficient mentality when it comes to the game of Magic the Gathering. What this means is you're turning cards that normally would hinder everyone work to your advantage. A simple example is playing Winter Orb when you have a stronger presence of alternative mana production. This allows you to play through such effects more efficiently than your opponents.

Is Stax For You?

-Do you play in a competitive Meta with mature adults?

-Do you feel Land Destruction is a perfectly viable strategy?

-Do you enjoy control type strategies?

-Are you not opposed to being the target every game?

-Do you enjoy longer, more complicated games?

Stax decks are not friendly. They're not buying you beers or laughing at your Chuck Norris jokes. They will generally become the table's focus once up and running and will draw out games beyond the 20 minute mark. They are difficult to pilot and can be frustrating to do so. But that's not to say that can't be fun to play and play against. A lot of people like challenges, probably why people climb mountains or get married, and this is the type of deck that gives you one.Stax decks are not good stuff decks, or battle cruiser. They do not play big creatures and rarely have more then two or three of them out at a time. They also aren't big mana decks pushing out huge plays on turn five. They're slower, more restrictive, and really rely on the pilot to know when to play certain cards and when to hold back.

Now that's over let's get into the cards...

Creatures

Acidic Slime this guy is used all throughout EDH, and he's just great. With the use of recursion in our deck having a way to destroy artifacts and enchantments every turn is really nice, and don't let it go unknown that this can also take care of pesky lands also!

Big Game Hunter this is a new addition to the deck and I have not gotten to actually cast him yet in a game, but his ability works perfect with our game plan.

Birds of Paradise, Elves of Deep Shadow, Elvish Mystic, Joraga Treespeaker, Llanowar Elves, Heart Warden. Pretty straight forward mana ramp creatures. We all like to play cards earlier and start the lock down!

Carrion Feeder, Viscera Seer are both great sac outlets early game, and can always be used to help us either build a beefy creature, or get some great information with scry.

Caustic Caterpillar, Reclamation Sage, Shriekmaw, Spore Frog, Sylvan Safekeeper, are all great cards for either destroying artifacts and enchantments from our enemies (I feel this is a better term than opponents when it comes to EDH). The latter two creatures, help us protect and fog away early kill spells, or massive damage while helping Meren get going.

Courser of Kruphix, Deathrite Shaman, Disciple of Bolas, Eternal Witness, Grim Haruspex, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Necrotic Ooze, Liliana, Heretical Healer  , Scavenging Ooze, Spike Feeder. These cards all help us in multiple ways, but fall into the Support category. Either in the form of ramp, card advantage, recursion, and life gain. Great cards, but also the first to be viewed when needing to make cuts.

Doomgape, Massacre Wurm, Sepulchral Primordial, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Triskelion, Woodfall Primus. These cards fall into my category of Finishers. They all help progress the game into a victory. Either from beat down, board control, raw creature advantage, tutoring, and even infinite combos (looking at you Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, and Triskelion). I found out that one of the problems with the deck is that you would get Meren to a high enough experience counter, and not have very many good bombs to recur so most of these are new additions and I'm still in the process of testing each one out!

Fleshbag Marauder, and Merciless Executioner have turned out to be huge all stars during the early game scenarios. Keeping our enemies in check early game is key to helping us make that final push to lock our enemies out of the game.

That wraps up the creatures, now let's move on to the spells!

Spells

Vraska the Unseen, who doesn't like to win the game instantly? That's the main drive for using this card, I have not gotten much testing done with her, but I'm waiting for that moment when I win with her :p

Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, Bottomless Pit, Contamination, Desolation,Mind Slash, Oppression, Mind Twist. Those are the Stax based cards everyone of them is a beautiful baby that I hold dear in my heart.

Ashnod's Altar, Golgari Signet, Sol Ring, Awakening Zone, From Beyond, Skullclamp, Vampiric Tutor, Evolutionary Leap, Phyrexian Arena, Sylvan Library, Demonic Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith. Great mana accelerators, tutors, and card advantage spells that I find very helpful. Each of them should have pretty straight forward reasons for being in the deck just by looking at them.

Abrupt Decay, Beast Within, Putrefy, Toxic Deluge, Pernicious Deed. The kill spells, be it solo removal or mass removal you need it, and all of these cards, seem to fit my liking.

Everything else seems pretty self explanatory, and just helps the deck progress toward the ultimate goal of having your enemies not get to play magic! Hopefully this primer will help you understand the function and goal of a Stax deck. Another thing to mention is that a Stax strategy can be played along side others quite well, such as Pillow Fort, Voltron, and Control.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Assassin 1/1 B w/ Player Killer, Beast 3/3 G, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Experience Token, Morph 2/2 C, Ooze 1/1 G, Ooze 2/2 G for Mitotic Ooze, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Memes, Meren Decks